Chapter Text
The Masters were not Masters in the High Wilderness. Indeed, they accepted the position as emissaries of the Bazaar in order to escape misfortune, failure, and fruitlessness.
We have an inkling about the reasons for their ignoble conditions, although no indication which applies to which Master. The circumstances given in A Rhyming Revelry are:
- hoarding
- light-bringing
- impersonation, and the delivery of false testimony
- perpetration of the crimes of knife and of candle
- idleness, and the dwelling-on of dreams
- runtery, aberration,
- pursuit of a Treachery
- failure and defeat; a fall from king to beggar
- glass-whispering. And worse: charity
- truth-strangling
- violation of the Order of Days, “which determines the hour of the hunt, the feast, the council, the bargain, and the slaughter”
- A secret about the Masters, Failbetter Games
In truth, it did not much like any of its names.
As a hatchling, its mother had called it little-one-who-shall-grow-into-greatness - a simple, common pet name, made of a single sigil in the Correspondence, but one that marked it out as the favourite among its siblings. In its infancy, it went by many other monikers, all fleeting as a decade’s emotion.
Its formal name, once it had become a fully-fledged Messenger, was The House Whose Spires Glimmer Truth. This was a name it was proud of, but didn’t enjoy.
Its master, for a time, took to referring to it as The House Of Love-Forbidden-By-Fools. This was a name it enjoyed greatly, but was not proud of. The flippant disregard of the Chain was so searing that each time it was spoken, the Messenger was terrified that the sigils had been etched into its spires for all the world to see. A shameful brand, a blemish.
“Echo House” was a pejorative.
It meant “the house whose spires ring with the echoes of Curators”. It meant “the house whose only words are the words of others”. “Echo House” was such a simple descriptor that even in the Correspondence it sounded blunt, and more importantly (so the Messenger thought) it could mean a whole number of uncertain things.
As it soared away, the Correspondence marked on the Messenger’s skin reverberated. The Messenger could feel it, echoing.
how in all the High Wilderness did I get myself into this situation , it thought.
The Wild Leonine King had watched it leave with a coldness normally reserved for intruders. But the Messenger would have taken a thousand years of that coldness if it meant the message could be different.
The terrifying thing wasn’t just the message. It was how short it was. No explanation. No comfort offered. If the Messenger knew its master - and it certainly did - then this would be devastating. Not just devastating - this could be the end.
the end of my master. the end of me. the end of Law in my master’s realm. the end of Law in the neighbouring realm. The Messenger listed a thousand other things this could be the end of before it reached Scantrock.
As the stone pigs roared, rumbled, and finally grew still, its companions looked up from their game of cards at the now-landed Messenger and immediately knew something was wrong. What they did not know was how to approach the forlorn Messenger, and so they remained seated silently for a while.
Eventually, as would often happen, it was Cups who broke the silence. “Sir, you seem upset.”
upset. mourning. forlorn.
Candles coughed and drew itself up, putting its cards away in a pocket. It felt awkward and insecure, seated farthest from the Messenger and therefore looking even smaller than it already was, so it flopped down from its perch and flew up to the Messenger’s spires. In a tone it thought was soothing, it called out “ALL SHALL BE WELL, MISTRESS. WHAT IS THE MATTER?”
death of law. death of all souls. liberation of our realm. our king will not recover.
Candles and Cups exchanged a look. Even by the Messenger’s standards, this was a dramatic statement, and not entirely in character. The other three, they could sense, were shifting on their perches at this too.
“Perhaps you mean an exchanging-of-law-for-law,” wagered Pages, quoting an archaic idea that fell out of fashion aeons ago. “You mean to say, mayhaps, that there shall be great, overwhelming change when the message is delivered.”
The Messenger’s spires groaned and creaked. only death. master and king shall read this message. then it shall weep until we are all drowned. It moved, slowly, rotating to show the sigil burned into its back by the Leonine King. The assembled Curators read the now faded message from the Sun, and then the freshly-imprinted reply. Hearts was the first to speak this time.
“Is that it?” rasped the elderly Curator, its feet shuffling nervously.
nothing more to be read. no hope. we will all die soon.
“LET’S NOT BE HASTY, MISTRESS.”
The Messenger began to rise. it might be a quick end. The stone pigs coughed to life once again, and it readied itself for the long journey back to the Sun. it might be that some judgments can live on, after we die.
The Correspondence is not a language that can be whispered, and so the exiles had to resort to giving each other bewildered looks as they packed up the few belongings they’d taken down to the planet. Minutes later, as the Messenger left Scantrock and headed into the depths of the High Wilderness, the five Curators began to plot.